Study Hall: Mizzou 86, Texas A&M 85

It was a road sweep Wednesday night in the SEC. Florida beat Georgia, Alabama beat Ole Miss, and Tennessee beat Mississippi State. Then of course, Missouri beat Texas A&M. So, you know, the good teams all won on the road!

The story of the night was to weather the early storm, attack A&Ms weaknesses, rebound like crazy, and then lean on the redemption arc of Shawn Phillips.

With 12 minutes left to play, locked in a tight game with the Aggies clawing back from a 7 point deficit to eevn the game back up at 62, Dennis Gates ran a play that isolated Mark Mitchell and set up a back screen for a lob to Phillips. The play was run perfectly, the lob throw was perfect, the ball hit Phillips right in the hands with him soaring above the rim and then he buffed it. I’m not sure what happened, maybe he was too high above the rim, but he just kind of shoved it into the front of the rim. The ball bounced away, and A&M had the ball again.

Gates is a believer in his players, so it should surprise no one when he went back to the same play with the game in the balance. With 17 seconds left, the Tigers ran it back only this time Phillips slammed the ball through the hoop giving his team a one point lead. The only problem, Missouri had just a one point lead and A&M had the ball with more than enough time to get a good look. They still needed to get a defensive stop. We’ve been in this situation before.

Going back in time a bit further, on January 20th, Georgia coach Mike White ran a play to isolate Phillips late in the game. With the Bulldogs down a bucket, Smurf Millender turned the corner on Phillips, got to the rim and was fouled. Giving Georgia an important road win.

So with 4 seconds left on the clock, Bucky McMillan ran a play to isolate the Tigers center on his best player Rashaun Agee. Agee attacked Phillips chest and tried to draw a foul while attempting to get the ball up on the glass. But Phillips held his ground, held his position, and used his long wingspan to get a deflection on the shot attempt. The ball slid off his arm and into the hands of Mark Mitchell, securing the win.

Shawn Phillips delivering the two plays Missouri needed to secure the win is a quintessential Gates moment. For all the things Phillips is, and isn’t, his coach believes in him. It’s a confidence Gates instills in his roster in a way that we haven’t really seen from a Missouri coach before. It doesn’t always work out (see Georgia), and at times this season has been bumpier than we wanted… but that’s his style and approach.

From my earlier post about road wins, this ranks as the 8th best road win for Mizzou since joining the SEC, ahead of last years win over Georgia, and behind Cuonzo’s 2022 win at Texas A&M. We’ll see how it ages as the rest of the season goes on and KenPom updates. But I figured it was worth mentioning.

It’s also worth pointing out that Gates is responsible for the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, 8th, and 9th best road wins. The other four belong to Cuonzo, and three of those came in 2021. Now back to the game!

TEAM STATS

If you’d have told me before the game Texas A&M was going to shoot 45.5% from three point range, I’d have probably guessed they won by 15. They shot and made the same number of threes Illinois did, and the Illini beat Mizzou by 40. But as you watched the first half unfold, and the Aggies bury 7 of their first 9 three point attempts, you looked up and they were only up by 2 points. At that point I knew Missouri could pull this game out. Because you know how I feel about threes at this point, sometimes they fall, sometimes they don’t. But even hot starts eventually cool off.

Because I like to look these things up, since the SEC expanded in 2012-13 season, 24 teams have attempted 28 or more three pointers and had a percentage as high as 50%, so 7 of 9 (78%) isn’t a sustainable number. Eventually the threes will dry up, and they did. A&M shot 64.7% in the first half, and 25% in the second half. Meanwhile Missouri was consisten, they shot 33% from distance in the first half, and 33% in the second. But their 2FG% went up to 58.1%. Once the three point makes hit a lull, Mizzou’s bettter overall game plan began to take hold.

• For a team who has struggled to value the basketball at times this year, they were faced with perhaps their toughest challenge and they passed with flying colours. Phillips had three turnovers, but the rest of the team only had 6 TOVs on the game. Giving up the ball 9 times against a full court press all game — on the road! — is a prime example of handling the pressure. I’ll also mention one of those turnovers was a shot clock violation, and five TOVs were deadball turnovers. A&M had 9 points off turnovers and 0 fast break points.
• The first half stat line is funny because Mizzou had 18 total rebounds, and 11 offensive rebounds. They missed 17 shots. That’s how you keep pace with a team firebombing from outside, you collect 65% of your missed shots and average 1.4 points per possession by taking 8 more FGAs than they do.

More fun with historical facts, just 8 teams have won on the road when the home team has shot an eFG% higher than 62% since the SEC expanded. Home teams are 152-8 when they shoot 62% eFG or higher. So how about that?

INDIVIDUAL STATS

Trifecta: Trent Pierce, T.O. Barrett, Mark Mitchell

On the season: Mark Mitchell 46, Jayden Stone 25, Jacob Crews 19, Anthony Robinson 17, T.O. Barrett 11, Trent Pierce 7,Shawn Phillips 7,Jevon Porter 5, Sebastian Mack 3, Annor Boateng 1

Welcome to the Trent Pierce coming out party. This is a great matchup for Pierce, a 6’10 wing, and he didn’t miss his shot(s), pun intended. He took 15 shots but they were all good shots, mostly allowing the defenses to collapse around Phillips or Mark Mitchell and then attacking gaps either through replacement or driving to the rim. Pierce outpaced everyone on the Aggies, including the career night they saw from former Jayhawk Zach Clemence. And Pierce was just one rebound shy of a double double. Just an awesome performance from him.

That Missouri won this game without Mitchell scoring a bunch is important, and he only scored 9 points. But A&M was so heavily focused on stopping Mitchell that he just let them double him while he kicked the ball to open teammates. He also threw two perfect lobs to Phillips that counted, and one that didn’t.

I thought this was Anthony Robinson’s best game in a while. His shots still aren’t falling, but he had 5 assists, 4 rebounds, and most importantly 0 turnovers. The size and physicality of he and T.O. Barrett caused issues for the Aggie press when they tried to turn up the heat. Both guards have had issues with turnovers at times this season, but they were locked in and used their distinct size advantage to keep the pressure at bay.

With Ant and Mark having such quality floor games, it’s a big reason the pressure never really got to the Tigers. Seeing the floor and taking advantage of the back end of the press is easy when you have bigs who can handle the ball like Mark can, and guards who can hit ahead and see over the top.

I love Jacob Crews’ 237.5 ORtg. Keep not missing shots, Crews.

This is a game Gates kept his rotation short, in a game where the pace was likely to be turned up, he knew he had to manage it wisely to get a win. He did so. The Tigers didn’t wear down, and only looked gassed during one stretch where there were no whistles for about 5 minutes of game action. No really, Mizzou called a timeout at 6:05 and there was not another stoppage in play until they called another timeout at 1:35 to play. When I saw Pat Adams was the official for the game, I knew we’d be in for a weird night, and it was a weird one.

There were 8 fouls called in the first half, and just 5 free throws attempted. In the second half there were 19 fouls called and 25 free throws attempted. But Missouri was in the bonus by 14:51 to play, and the double bonus with 10 minutes to play. And Texas A&M was not called for another foul beyond the 10 minute mark. On the flip side, Mizzou sent A&M to the single bonus by the 10:40 mark, and weren’t whistled for a foul after the 7:08 mark when they blew the offensive foul call on Mitchell.

Zero fouls called in the final 7 minutes of an SEC basketball game, which was hotly contested. I’m not even saying it was poorly officiated in the final 7 minutes, that’s just unusual.

But here’s the thing, the Tigers earned a high quality Q1 win that likely puts them back inside the bubble for most bracket makers. You cannot turn around and give that result back. Beat Texas at home. Get to 8-4 in the league, and keep the train rolling.

I’ve moved the glossary to a static page at RockM+ to reduce the size of the bottom of this post.

So if you’re looking for what any of these stats mean, Check out the Glossary!

In attempting to update Study Hall, I’ve moved away from Touches/Possession and moving into the Rates a little more. This is a little experimental so if there’s something you’d like to see let me know and I’ll see if there’s an easy visual way to present it.

If there’s something you’d like to see more of an explanation on, drop a note and let me know!